The present invention relates to an apparatus for assembling plastic cases for cassette tapes.
Plastic cases for cassettes, compact disks (CD) or the like are widely applied. A plastic case generally comprises a male case member and a female case member pivotally jointed together to form an openable case for receiving a cassette or CD therein. FIG. 10 of the drawings shows the flow chart for producing and assembling the case and FIG. 11 shows the mechanical layout. First, two injection molding machines 3a are utilized to respectively form the male case member 1a and the female case member 2a. Then, the two case members 1a and 2a are removed from the injection molding machines 3a by being sucked by suckers on two robots 4a under the control of computer programs. After that, the two case members 1a and 2a are placed and positioned on an assembling machine 5a to complete the assembly of the case. After assembly, the case moves to a case piling area to be subsequently packaged in boxes.
FIG. 12 shows the assembly of the male case member 1a and the female case member 2a. The male member 1a has two nubs 11a for engaging two corresponding grooves 21a on the female case member 2a to form a pivotable case. For the assembling purpose, each groove has a longitudinal guiding path 22a extending therefrom for guiding the nubs 11a to enter the grooves 21a, facilitating assembly.
However, the assembling machine 5a requires a complicated design in order to precisely assemble the male and female case members and to control the displacement of the holders, which leads to a high cost. Furthermore, two injection molding machines and two robots are required for respectively forming and assembling the male and female case member, which results in more required space and additional cost.
The present invention provides an apparatus for assembling plastic cases to mitigate and/or obviate the above-mentioned problems.